Building a Hub Site: Thinking About Linking

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With Google providing every indication that hub sites will be given special consideration in the search engine rankings, it makes good sense to consider turning your site into a hub. To start on the road to constructing a hub, it’s best to start thinking in terms of linking.

Building your website into what is called a Hub Site is not something that occurs to many webmasters. While Hub Site is not as well known as its equally important cousin the Authority Site, achieving Hub Site status will propel your site to the top of the Google search engine rankings.

Note that a hub site can also be an authority site, while an authority site can also be a hub site, although but not necessarily so. The two Google designations are not mutually exclusive. An authority site is largely based on an abundance of incoming links, large page numbers, huge amounts of content, and high Google PageRank.

A hub site is based on having large numbers of outgoing links, along with the other features of the authority site. Because a site can have both large numbers of incoming and outgoing links, a site can be both a hub site and an authority site at the same time.

To start on the road to constructing a hub, it's best to start thinking in terms of linking. Forget any preconceived ideas about gain and loss of Google PageRank. Hub sites are based almost exclusively on their linking factors. As we will see, the linking out from your hub site is equally as important as adding incoming links.

A hub should be seen as almost as an Internet train station, with incoming and outgoing tracks. Those link tracks can lead just as easily to a direct competitor to your business, as to a web page with a similar theme. In many ways, the various Internet directories, like the Open Directory Project or the Yahoo! Directory, are almost ultimate hub sites. Both feature numerous incoming and outgoing links making them terminal stations and hub sites.

You should seriously consider turning your existing website into a hub site. The additional boost to your Google ranking will be enormous. Your site will rise much higher in the search rankings than other related and similarly themed sites. They will lack your site's abundance of incoming and outgoing thematic links.

Your site's staying power, through possible algorithm changes, should be infinitely stronger as well. Once the hub status is accorded to your site by Google, the accompanying high search rankings are less likely to be removed. That is the power and the attraction of achieving hub site status.

Next: To be a Hub you Have to Think Links >>
 

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